Tag Archives: things to do in london

Two digits down from my usual E8 postcode, it feels like a different place, slightly left of Hackney. On the ‘up-and-coming’ radar it has a unique and local personality. If it could speak, it would tell you about the great little market, some super comfy pubs, unique cafes and quirky characters and how it’s the essence of east London.

But Clapton is modest about such things. It would rather keep itself to itself. Which is not a bad thing in this age of super hyped shared experiences via social media channels and immediate saturation of hidden gems (of which I am probably guilty of sharing…. Sorry!).

I’ll be bringing reviews and stories to life of the area and the usual fodder of food, booze and events in Hackney in the coming weeks, so watch this space!

I can’t wait to visit Dalston (I’ve been missing you this summer) and this awesome street food festival tomorrow. I’ll report back from the street… hopefully with a belly full of delicious food.

With stalls from stone baked pizza aficionados Home Slice and Muscle Men serving salacious seafood, Street Feast offers up a tough choice of traders, but i’m planning at least two dinners… and a pudding.

Those clever chaps at Blanche and Shock are putting their green fingers to good use once more to host an epic epicurean evening at Stepney City Farm this Friday. As well as using ingredients inspired by the setting, a working city farm, they’re actually using the ingredients grown from the farm itself (including ram, but not guinea pig I am told!).

The menu includes some delicious countryside fayre and it looks a little something like:

Duck egg yolk with chanterelles, leaves and flowers

Various cuts of chicken with rainbow chard and rocket

Barbecued ram, potatoes, broad beans, hay and clover

Goat’s milk, rhubarb cake, fig leaves and yarrow

I love the idea of using foraged food from the surroundings and also utilising urban farming to feed the city folk some fresh countryside produce, on our own doorstep.

Expect the unexpected with fabulous flavour combinations and classic ingredients infused by extrovert technique and skillful recipe prep. This is guaranteed to be a blinder of a night, not only for the menu and the farm setting, but fellow food fanatics will find solace in foodie chats with fellow diners.

Never mind the scallops… The traditional US clam bake with a jubilant twist is coming to Émigré Studios rooftop in Hackney this weekend in the form of God Save the Clam. Party on a rooftop with some sublime seafood and sinful sundaes with beach huts and camp cocktails for a beachside feel right on the heart of the urban east endin. Mix all this heady food and fine times with some sensational summery DJ Don Letts on the decks and you got a might night.

Competition is mighty high for parties during the jubilee, but this hot ticket is worth sinking your claws into.

Crystal Bennes BA, MA, PhD is no doubt one of my more intellectual friends. Whilst she mainly scales the dizzy heights of awesomeness of clever clogs mountain, she occasionally frolics in the valley of art for kicks.

This is one of her intriguing ‘hidden spaces’ exhibitions. She’ll take a disused space left fallow by the council and turn it into something of an event.

Along with a group of well-flavored friends, her consideration and planning bring interesting art and ethereal ideas to a peak of spectaluarism to create unique and thoughtful events.

The latest summer ‘happening’ is in a shabby building on Clerkenwell road. In the heart of the creative capital, this building has the potential to be something beautiful, but remains unloved, peeling and frankly, quite sad in it’s interior. She’s going to be doing this…

“…purchasing a single card from the thousands on display [at the RCA ‘Secret’ exhubution] with the intent to then invite the artist behind that card to produce a solo show”

The purchased card was by current RCA student, Noemie Goudal. Bennes comments: ‘Noemie’s work is thoughtful as well as beautiful, but it also complements the SALON (LONDON) desire to promote the temporal, to react against unity of form and restrictions in theme and disciplinarily: her work isn’t simply photography – it’s architectural and theatrical, combining staged set designs with a narrative approach to storytelling. Given that the decision to offer Noemie a solo show was made off the back of a single post-card sized work, I couldn’t be more pleased with the result of this rather chaotic process.’